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Geochemical Characterization of Natural Gas: A Physical Multivariable Approach and Its Applications in Maturity and Migration Estimates

¹ Division of Geology-Geochemistry, Institut Français du Pétrole, 1 and 4 Avenue de Bois Préau, 92852 Rueil Malmaison Cedex, France; alain.prinzhofer{at}ifp.fr
² Petrobras Research and Development Center - Cenpes, Cidade Universitária, Quadra 7, Ilha do Fundão, 21949-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
³ Petrobras Research and Development Center - Cenpes, Cidade Universitária, Quadra 7, Ilha do Fundão, 21949-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Alain Prinzhofer graduated with a Ph.D. in geology from the School of Mines of Paris. He completed a second Ph.D. on trace elements and isotopes of mantle rocks at Paris University in 1987. He worked in cosmochemistry at the Californian Institute of Technology and joined the French Institute of Petroleum (IFP) in 1990, where he initiated a group on the geochemistry of natural gases. He presently works from laboratory experiments to geological case studies.Marcio Rocha Mello received a degree in geology from Brasilia University. In 1976, he joined Petrobras as a well-site geologist working in the Recôncavo basin, located in northeastern Brazil. By 1982, after work as a petroleum explorationist in the Ceará and Potiguar basins, northeastern Brazil, he became the head of the Petrobras Geochemistry Laboratory. In 1985, he joined Bristol University in England, where he received a Ph.D. in petroleum geochemistry. In 1988, he was made head of the Petrobras Geochemistry Section. Presently, he is the head of the Center of Excellence in Geochemistry of Petrobras. In the last 10 years, Marcio has been using the petroleum system approach in most Latin American sedimentary basins. In addition, Marcio is the president of the Brazilian Association of Petroleum Geologists, a recipient of AAPG's Distinguished Achievement Award, and an associated professor at several Brazilian universities.

Tikae Takaki graduated with an M.S. degree in sciences from the Chemical Engineering Department of the Polytechnical School in São Paulo, Brazil. She completed her thesis studying oxygen and hydrogen isotope ratios in rain samples in 1978. She worked at the IEN (Institute of Energy Research) in São Paulo in 1978 and joined CENPES, the Research Center of Petrobras, in 1979 in the Center of Excellence in Geochemistry, where she currently manages the isotope section of the laboratories.

Gas geochemistry has recently been shown to enhance information regarding the geological history of hydrocarbons. In this paper, graphical representations of physico-chemical processes affecting the chemical and isotopic signatures of natural gases are exemplified. These diagrams are based on experimental studies and the use of basic statistics to extract significant and synthetic parameters from the geochemical data. From 11 chemical and isotopic ratios, a statistical analysis (PCA) yields two very important parameters. The first parameter, using mainly the C₂₊ fraction of the gas, relates to maturity and the second parameter, involving the proportions and ¹³C values of methane, indicates mainly segregative migration. Positive values of the second parameter indicate that gases accumulated far from their source, whereas negative values correspond to residual gas pools after leakage of a part of the fluids. A tentative reconstruction of the gas history has been performed in two Brazilian basins: the Espirito Santo basin and part of the Recôncavo basin. The Espirito Santo basin is located on the passive continental margin of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Recôncavo basin corresponds to an intracontinental aborted rift. In both cases, the source rocks are mainly lacustrine, with thermal maturities ranging between the oil window and the beginning of the gas window. Results show that in the Recôncavo basin, a major fault (the Mata Catu fault) acts as a drain for hydrocarbon migration at the basin scale, associating a major isotopic fractionation to the gas migration with a clear correlation between isotope fractionation and the distance of migration. In the Espirito Santo basin, this segregation appears in the platform sediments to a lesser extent and is absent in the gas pools located in the paleocanyons filled with turbidites. This long-distance migration in the platform sediments suggests that a hydrocarbon kitchen is located offshore.

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